Quotes of the day

posted at 11:04 pm on October 30, 2012 by Allahpundit

The expected force of the superstorm, combined with its timing and the growing importance of early voting in battleground states, had the potential to affect the outcome like no other weather event in U.S. presidential election history.

“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Allan J. Lichtman, a professor of history at American University in Washington…

My advice to everyone is to hold your breath, say a prayer for everyone affected or donate to the recovery, wait as patiently as you can, and ignore any polls until this weekend at the earliest. Up until Sandy hit the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, this extremely tight race had been roughly stagnant for two weeks. Mitt Romney had a slight advantage in the national popular vote, and Obama had a slight advantage in the Electoral College. (A split between the popular vote and Electoral College I spoke about as a possibility in a column in June.) That is the last signal we had as of Monday a.m.

Sandy could turn this race in a way none of us anticipated. A few months ago, I said that there would be five events in October that would determine who was going to get elected: three presidential debates, one vice-presidential debate, and an unexpected event. I never anticipated the unexpected moment would be a historic hurricane hitting the most populous regions of the country. Just shows you there are some things in life we can’t predict or control—an important life lesson and political lesson. No we wait and see what the result of all this will be.

***

But Romney has one big advantage: He is free of the risk the president bears in failing, or even appearing to fail, to pull the levers of government to effectively respond to the expected devastation. And he has little choice but to limit his campaigning…

In September 2008, the financial crisis provided a perfect metaphor for Obama’s team, which had sought to portray its relatively young and indisputably inexperienced candidate as the steady, presidential hand and McCain as unpredictable. McCain made that contrast easy: He suspended his campaign, temporarily pulled out of a debate and raced back to Washington to pass the TARP bill. Only it didn’t work out that way. Many Americans hated the Wall Street bailout, most House Republicans defected from McCain and the bill was defeated on the House floor — before it was brought up a second time and passed.

McCain’s over-the-top response to the financial crisis was the opposite of George W. Bush’s too-little, too-late reaction to Hurricane Katrina, which, though it did not strike in the midst of an election, did more damage to Bush’s image than any other domestic issue during his presidency. At times since then, Republicans have shown extra sensitivity to natural disasters, abbreviating both their 2008 and 2012 national conventions because of hurricanes.

***

It’s as simple as this: If the storm knocks out your power, you can’t watch TV.

Both campaigns are planning to spend tens of millions of dollars on a final assault of campaign commercials. But Sandy could knock those plans off the air in such battleground states as Virginia, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and the lean Obama-state of Pennsylvania, which are all in the storm’s path. And while it won’t get a direct hit, battleground Ohio will also feel the wrath of Sandy.

“In areas without power and thus without either TV advertising or TV news, the race is likely to be frozen in place,” said Elizabeth Wilner, vice president at Kantar Media/Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political ad spending on broadcast and national cable TV.

***

Imagine a scenario in which Romney edges Obama by 100,000 in Ohio, 30,000 in Iowa, 15,000 in New Hampshire, and 50,000 in Virginia. That’s 41 electoral votes with a microscopic edge of 195,000 votes in four states. That 195,000 would be slightly more than a third of the average Democratic margin since 2000 in New Jersey and one-tenth of the average Democratic winning margin in California.

Here’s where Sandy comes in and could make a profound difference in terms of the popular vote and electoral vote…

Storm-diminished turnouts in [Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York] could cost Obama tens of thousands of popular votes. It could also cost him 20 electoral votes in Pennsylvania. The implications are obvious in Virginia as well, but that state was always going to be close and the margin of victory understood to be narrow. There are ways Obama can win without Virginia but not many without Pennsylvania.

Under the Constitution, Congress has the authority to change the “first Tuesday in November” date for the presidential election. But as of Tuesday morning, there had been no serious discussion of moving the date of Election Day by the top leaders in the Republican-led House or the Democratic-led Senate, according to senior congressional aides. A spokesman for the House Committee on Administration did say that the committee “is closely monitoring the impacted states.”

Delaying the election might be an option given that hard-hit states are likely to be dealing with power outages and flooded locales that could extend well past Nov. 6. And with this presidential race projected to be close electorally, imagine the controversy and lawsuits that would inevitably result because enough back-up generators can’t be found to power electronic voting equipment, or if voters are displaced from home or can’t get to polling places…

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials are telling states that the federal government would help them pay to move polling places, or to bring in generators next week to areas without power. But political and legal experts underscore that — even after 9/11, which occurred just before a mayoral election in New York — that the federal government has never put in place any solid plan to deal with such disruptions. “So we are left with the situation where the people who probably most know where we might stand on Election Day are the utility companies,” says Edward Foley, an election law expert at Ohio State University Law School in Columbus.

***

All of this chatter about delaying Election Day is ridiculous on every level. First, it’s not going to happen. Despite the chatter, the president has no authority to change Election Day. None. Zip. Nada. Those people who simply assume this is a presidential decision are betraying the degree to which they simply accept the legitimacy of an imperial presidency. Now I understand limitations on presidential power haven’t always curtailed this president. But if he tried to move or delay Election Day, it would be a national scandal and outrage (or at least it should be). The power to set the Election Day lies with the states. You’d have to change a vast patchwork of state laws (all the Constitution requires is that the states deliver their electors in mid-December). Also, Congress has a role to play because it determines, by statute, the timing of elections.

Chuck Todd who knows vastly more about politics than I do, should recall that 9/11 did not delay the New York mayoral race. It delayed the primary — which was scheduled on 9/11. Sandy made landfall eight days before the election — and wasn’t an act of war. If 9/11 is the best precedent for moving the federal election day, there is no precedent for it. And there is none. Sure, some local elections have been delayed for this or that reason. But this country held elections during the Civil War! Even FDR who violated a near-sacred tradition to run for a third term and fourth term, still ran for them.

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I grew up in Brooklyn and was in NYC for work this weekend and barely got out of dodge Sunday afternoon. Pretty freaky. The word is that it will take weeks to get the subways up and running. It will be hilarious to see all those anti-bus Manhattanits having to ride buses for once.

libfreeordie on October 30, 2012 at 11:14 PM

So you didn’t stick around to fill sandbags or give blood or donate to the Red Cross?

Do you honestly think you even get a taste of my full command of the English language. I don’t proof read or revise my posts and I still dance rhetorical circles around most everyone here, regardless of the vernacular form I may adopt. Ain’t scurred the likes of you.

libfreeordie on October 30, 2012 at 11:52 PM

This is too funny.

Tell me: What does it take for you to “fire-up” your “full command of the English language?” Generators wired to a cog-wheel in your head? Most of us typically use our “full command” whenever we speak or write by default.

Also, I know a few college professors–though they are in real fields like mathematics and science. Oddly, all of them write much more coherently than you.

Do you honestly think you even get a taste of my full command of the English language. I don’t proof read or revise my posts and I still dance rhetorical circles around most everyone here, regardless of the vernacular form I may adopt. Ain’t scurred the likes of you.

libfreeordie on October 30, 2012 at 11:52 PM

You have got to be kidding me. You actually went there? Preen much? I’ll stack my post-grad degree against yours any day. I just hate preening, it’s so narcissistic and betrays deep-set insecurity and self-esteem problems.

I’ve already mourned Romney winning, so I’ll probably avoid the news, be in a bit of a funk and keep living life.

libfreeordie on October 30, 2012 at 11:33 PM

That’s just sad. That you will mourn the defeat of a candidate who is dedicated to destroying the freedoms and individual liberties of the citizens of this country is a poor, poor reflection of a dark soul. That you find someone like Obama, who has done more to grow the intrusiveness of the federal government into every nook and cranny of every citizen’s life, as someone worthy of the highest office in the land reveals someone who fails to appreciate the freedoms that others better than yourself fought and died to protect.

He has has not made the issue a regular hit in his stump speech. He has not offered ads arguing that it was Obama who left the four Americans vulnerable. Romney seems content to let the issue play out in its own time.

The Obama administration has some explaining to do. With four Americans dead overseas, their fellow citizens rightly want to know why they couldn’t have been protected. But the answers will not fit neatly, or in time, to make 30-second campaign ads. And there may be new revelations but definitive answers can’t be expected before election day.

A family friend was fortunate enough to be an extra in The Replacemnts filmed here in Bawlmer, using the Raven’s stadium and facilities. He said that Hackman was wondeful and gracious to the cast, crew, extras, fan, and locals. IT was nice to hear.

If you honestly want to know, I have a medical practice and I fully intend to let one or two employees go with an Obama win. With a Romney victory I’d keep on going as it is. And that’s the God’s honest truth.

Remember that time you claimed to know more about Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and then demonstrated that the only thing you knew about King was the I Have a Dream speech. Oh, good times, good times. I remember it like it was 35 minutes ago.

libfreeordie on October 30, 2012 at 11:55 PM

How about when Jesse ran up to make sure he was in pics of MLK with Dr. King’s blood on him. Do you remember that like it was yesterday? Cause I do, along with John Kerry in his fatigues testifying lying his stinky, pus*y ass off before congress, the year before I went over myself to hook up the batteries to them poor VCs and kill all dem babies.

Do you honestly think you even get a taste of my full command of the English language. I don’t proof read or revise my posts and I still dance rhetorical circles around most everyone here, regardless of the vernacular form I may adopt. Ain’t scurred the likes of you.

Do you honestly think you even get a taste of my full command of the English language. I don’t proof read or revise my posts and I still dance rhetorical circles around most everyone here, regardless of the vernacular form I may adopt. Ain’t scurred the likes of you.

libfreeordie on October 30, 2012 at 11:52 PM

Finally, a genius in our midst. One wonders whether he attends the MENSA picnics as a participant or, perhaps, as its “porta potty maintenance specialist”.

I can’t stand 0we-bow-mao, I realize that he is a sociopath and a pathological liar, but I don’t believe that his conscience is completely non-functioning, as it is with many of the freaks who surround him; I can’t believe he could have made it as far as he has politically if this weren’t the case.

That’s just sad. That you will mourn the defeat of a candidate who is dedicated to destroying the freedoms and individual liberties of the citizens of this country is a poor, poor reflection of a dark soul. That you find someone like Obama, who has done more to grow the intrusiveness of the federal government into every nook and cranny of every citizen’s life, as someone worthy of the highest office in the land reveals someone who fails to appreciate the freedoms that others better than yourself fought and died to protect.

AZfederalist on October 31, 2012 at 12:04 AM

The good professor is an avowed Marxist, of course he rooting for the destruction of America. He want’s revenge for acts of inhuman cruelty that were never inflicted on him, against people who never engaged in those inhuman acts.

A poster, such as myself, who freely switches from academic, to slang, high culture to low culture, Downton Abbey to Detroit and everywhere inbetween; I find myself not the least concerned with your ajudication of my mental facilities. On the contrary, you’re most obvious inability to recognize code switching when you see it, belies a brain so feebly developed it is a miracle you have not been committed to Bedlam Hospital. Well, I suppose there is still time for you to get the cognitive treatment you so direly need. Till then, I shall pray for you and hope you may be delivered from your otherwise sorry state of mental affairs.

That better dawg?

libfreeordie on October 30, 2012 at 11:38 PM

oh, so now you are an expert in Victorian England too, apart from MLK :-) And I see that your idea of ‘Victorian English’ is Downtown Abbey, wow, amazing what cultural illiterates PBS can create :)… Only problem with that, honey, is that Downtown Abbey is post-Edwardian era, not Victorian, and the accent is local Yorkshire. Btw, do you speak French too, or any other European language for that matter, Flemish, Italian, do you freely switch to any of these, high minded one, I’d be more than happy to oblige :) only not Austrian, pls :) we don;t like Austrian too much over there, don’t know, Hitler’s mother tongue and all that :-)….

Besides the typing errors, you actually made changes that belied the Victorian style. “Subtlety” was, of course, used often back in the day, buy guile really makes the passage feel antiquated. And your insistance on “from,” “to” agreement” makes it feel more like a letter than a line of speech. Fail.

libfreeordie on October 30, 2012 at 11:59 PM

Look, I know you think you use vocabulary correctly, but you don’t. Antiquated means out of date or outworn. You used adjudicated incorrectly. You don’t bludgeon with a ram. I could go on, but it is getting late.

If I hear one more conservative pundit go on about how this storm benefits Obama because it allows him to “look Presidential”, I’m going to gag. There is nothing that man could do at this point to look Presidential. He reeks of insincerity and arrogance, and I do not understand why we have to have benign, white bread pundits like Byron York and Bill Kristol speak for us. They are utterly worthless.

A family friend was fortunate enough to be an extra in The Replacemnts filmed here in Bawlmer, using the Raven’s stadium and facilities. He said that Hackman was wondeful and gracious to the cast, crew, extras, fan, and locals. IT was nice to hear.

For those of you who are frustrated that the storm has taken Benghazi off of Odumbo’s plate, I’m afraid that they succeeded at their aim, which was to delay anything coming from it until after the election.

I don’t think it will go away, but I think Odumbo skates, either way.Glenn Jericho on October 30, 2012 at 11:21 PM
That’s brilliant!

RedCrow on October 30, 2012 at 11:55 PM

Maybe so, maybe not. If the stars align right, Mitt wins and Rudy Guiliani is named AG. I just don’t want it to be Christie.

You were right about the Tiger bats..I am stunned the Tiger hitting slump lasted that long..:)

PS..Good evening..:)

Dire Straits on October 31, 2012 at 12:14 AM

Hey, Dire.
Yeah, first I said they’d never catch Chicago…
Then I said you can’t win a WS hitting like that…
And, I was proved right…finally.

BTW, when the primaries were going on, I was one of the few whack-jobs here who voted for Mitt. I took a little heat, though respectful, for it. At the time I said, “I just think he has the best shot to win against Odumbo.”

A final, obvious point: The “fog of battle” that night was dense not just in Benghazi but in Cairo, Tunis and elsewhere. U.S. officials needed better intelligence. That’s the toughest problem to address, but the most important.

Ignatius must be a complete moron.

Live, real-time cctv feed from the consulate…
Live, real-time video from two Predators orbiting the battle…
TWO highly trained and experienced special operators ON THE GROUND..engaged with the enemy..giving a blow-by-blow account of the battle and the enemy’s movements IN REAL TIME………………..

Thanks. We lucked out. The electric stayed on for the most part, but the roof leaked. It looks like it is time to replace our 24 year-old roof and get some drywall repaired. Considering other folks in worse shape, I’d say we’re blessed.

Oh please. Sandy was cat 1 hurricane and it hit over a WEEK before the election.

To be sure, any hurricane is a killer and ignoring evacuation orders is nuts, but Sandy will not go down in history as a major one. It’s a serious event but thinking it will affect an election over a week later is crazy.

The stock market and Govt. will be open Wednesday and life will get back to normal for the vast majority of people, even in the affected areas. Sure, hundreds will be more greatly affected (maybe even thousands) but the effect on the election will be totally insignificant.

Would you prefer victorian English? Very Well then. You have not the slightest hint of wit or linguistic guile. You post like a bludgeoning ram, ripping grammar and syntax into an unrecognizable rabble that only an American could understand. A poster, such as myself, who freely switches from academic, to slang, high culture to low culture, Downton Abbey to Detroit and everywhere inbetween; I find myself not the least concerned with your ajudication of my mental facilities. On the contrary, you’re most obvious inability to recognize code switching when you see it, belies a brain so feebly developed it is a miracle you have not been committed to Bedlam Hospital. Well, I suppose there is still time for you to get the cognitive treatment you so direly need. Till then, I shall pray for you and hope you may be delivered from your otherwise sorry state of mental affairs.

Maybe Obama doesn’t want to win, knowing what he knows about Benghazi.

Schadenfreude on October 31, 2012 at 12:06 AM

I believe that there is something to this line of thought, adding other issues like Fast & Furious to it.

I respectfully disagree and stand by my statement until I see evidence otherwise.

KCB on October 31, 2012 at 12:14 AM

What I am getting at is the difference between Bill Clinton and Hillary, Stephanie Cutter and DWS, and 0dumba himself and his wife, and I’ll throw in Trotsky and Stalin here to add to the effect – I don’t like any of them, but I see that there is a difference when it comes to their levels of soullessness.

Thanks. We lucked out. The electric stayed on for the most part, but the roof leaked. It looks like it is time to replace our 24 year-old roof and get some drywall repaired. Considering other folks in worse shape, I’d say we’re blessed.

Laura in Maryland on October 31, 2012 at 12:23 AM

Yup, could have been worse, Obama could have stopped by for a photo op… o_O

hanks. We lucked out. The electric stayed on for the most part, but the roof leaked. It looks like it is time to replace our 24 year-old roof and get some drywall repaired. Considering other folks in worse shape, I’d say we’re blessed.

Evening Jackie! Had a bit of a false start out off the gate early in the thread. Something in the workroom to tend too. I was worried I had missed some greetings. Is there a fancy word for greetings I can use with little libber?

Do you honestly think you even get a taste of my full command of the English language. I don’t proof read or revise my posts and I still dance rhetorical circles around most everyone here, regardless of the vernacular form I may adopt. Ain’t scurred the likes of you.